Angelo Ruggiero

Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero, Sr. (29 July 1940-5 December 1989) was a caporegime of the Gambino crime family under John Gotti. Ruggiero was a cousin of Aniello Delacroce and a high-ranking Gambino family member, and he was involved with heroin trafficking during the 1980s. He died of terminal lung cancer in 1989 after falling out with Gotti due to allowing for the FBI to wiretap him.

Biography
Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero Sr. was born in The Bronx, New York City, New York on 29 July 1940 to a family of Calabrian immigrants, and he was the cousin of Aniello Delacroce and a distant relative of John Gotti. Ruggiero suffered from Antisocial personality disorder, ADHD, and Tourette syndrome, and he was arrested for street fighting, public intoxication, car theft, bookmaking, possession of an illegal firearm, and burglary while growing up in East New York, Brooklyn during the 1950s. Ruggiero became known for his big mouth, his girth, and his rough voice, which sounded like a cement truck due to years of smoking. On 22 May 1973, Ruggiero, Gotti, and a Gambino gunman killed mobster James McBratney in a Staten Island bar for trying to kidnap a Gambino loanshark for ransom. In July 1977, the two of them were released on praole, and they were inducted into the family as made men.

From 1977 to 1984, Ruggiero took a no-show job as a plumbing and heating salesman, and he took part in the 1980 disappearance of John Favara after Favara killed Gotti's son in a car accident. In 1985, he participated in the slaying of Gambino boss Paul Castellano. In June 1986, he arranged for the murder of family capo Robert DiBernardo. Ruggiero was involved with drug trafficking during this period, and the FBI discovered his loansharking and racketeering activities through a wiretap. He was arrested several times during the 1980s, by which point he was dying of terminal lung cancer. Gotti chose not to have Sammy Gravano kill the dying Ruggiero for allowing the FBI to wiretap him, and Ruggiero died of cancer in Howard Beach, Queens on 5 December 1989 at the age of 49.